


the sun (kissing me with its golden mouth all the way)

by Jo_Raven



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Fix-It, Kissing, M/M, Sort Of, Touching, a wild blow job appears for like one line, also i did promise people on tumblr a baby wolf but there might not even be one honestly, and some sexy bits but it's pretty tame, barely any angst, basically no one dies, i love them and my heart is forever broken, lots of fluff, spoilers for 3x05 onwards, they run away and go live in a cabin in the woods in siberia, this is my coping mechanism, you can add it in your head
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:09:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24544396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jo_Raven/pseuds/Jo_Raven
Summary: Ragnar looks up suddenly, the blue of his eyes finding Athelstan’s face, and what he sees there must not suit him because he takes the few remaining steps separating them, frames his friend’s head with his hands, and whispers :« No, shhhh, shhhh, do not worry! Do not worry, my friend, it is alright! »« How? » Athelstan stammers, short on breath, on word, on everything at this moment. « How is any of that alright? »And Ragnar smiles at him, the kind of smile that’s rarely seen on the king’s face these days. He smiles like a man shall smile at something that’s causing him both pain and happiness at the same time, and he takes one of Athelstan’s hands with his own, and presses the palm against his own chest. Athelstan can feel Ragnar’s heartbeat under the linen. Strong and steady. Always.
Relationships: Athelstan/Ragnar Lothbrok
Comments: 28
Kudos: 140





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so 3x06 broke me and everything that happens after broke me some more and I kinda wanted to die so I wrote this instead. Please keep in mind that English isn't my first language and although I've been fluently speaking and reading it for a few years now, I don't usually write fiction with it. If you're polite about it, you're welcome to let me know of any mistake you noticed.  
> Title is from a poem by Mary Oliver.

They go with summer at their back and by the time they reach the edge of what will one day be called Russia, winter is rushing to meet them.

This is when Athelstan asks.

They have stopped for the night in a clearing at the top of a hill, and the horses shiver in the cold wind. The night is dark, moon and stars all hidden behind clouds. During such nights, Athelstan sometimes wonders if the gods, any of them, can still see them. If they are still out there looking after them, or if they’re all alone in the world until light returns to it.

Athelstan is crouching near the fire to warm his hands. Wrapped in the handful of furs he took with him on their way out of Wessex, Ragnar has his back to him. He stands at the edge of the clearing, looking West -the way they’ve come from. Athelstan is wondering what he’s thinking about, but he has a different and slightly more pressing question.

« Ragnar? »

« Hm. »

Athelstan waits, not for further acknowledgment but to find the right words, and the right way to say them. He settles for:

« Are we running from something? »

The question’s been nagging at his mind ever since Ragnar shook him awake the night before they were due to sail back to Kattegat, and led him away on horseback. It’s been days, weeks, and so many miles now. They’re very far away from Wessex, and even more farther away from the place they used to call home, and although Athelstan does not understand why, so far, he hasn’t asked.

His future lies with Ragnar, and where Ragnar goes, he goes.

It is not out of curiosity that he finally demands to know where they’re going, although curious he certainly is. He’s been growing more worried every day. Watching the curve of Ragnar’s spine bend lower and lower still as they keep moving through unknown land. The frown that the Norseman was wearing when he woke him up to go all those days ago has not disappeared, on the contrary, it has deepened to the point that it now seems to never leave Ragnar’s face, as if it had been sculpted out of stone with that expression of anguish. Ragnar barely eats and drinks, and Athelstan wonders if he sleeps at all, watching the shape of his body sitting up by the fire when he dozes off himself, and more often than not finding him in the exact same position with his eyes wide open comes morning.

Ragnar looks scared.

He’s never looked scared before. Athelstan has seen him angry, frustrated, outraged or even distraught. He’s seen him full of laughter and mischief, of hope and joy. Determined, always.

Scared, never.

Ragnar turns back from the West upon hearing Athelstan’s question, and looks at him. He’s standing too far away from the fire for Athelstan to be able to lock eyes with him, and somehow it makes him want to stand and go to him, reach for him. As if the shadows surrounding the viking were some threatening force about to swallow him whole.

« We’re not running from anything, » Ragnar says, but it doesn’t sound like an answer. More like an experiment. Ragnar pronouncing the words just to hear how they sound. And so Athelstan doesn’t press on, and makes himself remain still near the fire, his hands almost uncomfortably hot now.

Ragnar takes a few steps towards him but stops before reaching the circle of light casted by the fire. He rubs at his forehead like he can feel the frown there, and is trying to make it go away. Athelstan wants nothing but to press his hand there until whatever is haunting Ragnar does go away and leaves him, leaves them alone.

He doesn’t move.

« I had a dream about you, » Ragnar says softly. « I was carrying you on my back, up a hill. I took you to the waterfall where you and I prayed together. I laid you down on the ground there, and lowered myself next to you. The sky seemed so far away like that, Athelstan. So deep, like the sorrow in my heart. I could feel the burning of the tears on my face, as I dug a grave to lay you to rest in, and as I crafted a cross to put on top of it. »

Athelstan is selfishly glad that he can’t see Ragnar’s face, after all. Something inside his chest has gone painfully tight, and he can barely breathe, let alone swallow. Ragnar continues, his eyes on the ground at his feet:

« The aching of your loss did not disappear when I woke up. It eased a little bit when I roused you and you looked at me, and I knew that you were alive, but… »

He takes an other step and the light finally reaches his face, the flickering of the fire casting strange shadows along his jaw. His eyes shine like this, full of water. Athelstan desperately wants to stand but his legs won’t obey him. His mind is reeling as he understands, or thinks that he understands what Ragnar is telling him. But he cannot, he couldn’t… _Why would he…_

« You had a dream, » he repeats in a whisper.

« Yes but it wasn’t just a dream, do you understand? » and Ragnar’s eyes are boring into his now, and the fear is not only on his face but in his voice as well, and Athelstan does not, he does not understand what Ragnar is saying. It must show in his expression because Ragnar takes a deep breath, grounds himself somehow and makes himself explain:

« It was a warning. The gods were telling me that this was the future. You were going to die. I couldn’t take you back to Kattegat with me, because if I did, you would die, see? And I thought that you had to stay in Wessex, then, that Ecbert would keep you safe. He would have! He loved you! But... »

Ragnar sways on his feet and for a moment Athelstan thinks that the Norseman is going to take the last fews steps between them and come and crouch near the fire with him. He wishes he did, because Ragnar looks terribly alone and cold and frightened, standing there at the edge between light and darkness, and Athelstan does not want to hear more, does not want Ragnar to tell him why he did’t simply left him in Wessex when he could have, because if Ragnar tells him, then, if he tells him…

« I did not want to leave you behind again, you understand? »

Athelstan stands. He does understand, and his legs shake from it, like the knowledge is pressing a hand on his shoulders, making him heavier to carry. Yet he stands, and looks at Ragnar.

Ragnar, who’s abandoning everything behind him.

His wife, his sons, his friends.

His kingdom.

His home.

His dreams.

Just because…

« … just so you can be with me? »

Ragnar looks up suddenly, the blue of his eyes finding Athelstan’s face, and what he sees there must not suit him because he takes the few remaining steps separating them, frames his friend’s head with his hands, and whispers:

« No, shhhh, shhhh, do not worry! Do not worry, my friend, it is alright! »

« How? » Athelstan stammers, short on breath, on word, on everything at this moment. « How is any of that alright? »

And Ragnar smiles at him, the kind of smile that’s rarely seen on the king’s face these days. He smiles like a man shall smile at something that’s causing him both pain and happiness at the same time, and he takes one of Athelstan’s hands with his own, and presses the palm against his own chest. Athelstan can feel Ragnar’s heartbeat under the linen. Strong and steady. Always.

« It is alright, » Ragnar says again, softly. « See? You fill my entire heart. My entire heart, Athelstan. And so it is alright. I will be alright. As long as I can be with you. »

#

It does not per se haunt Athelstan for the next few weeks. But it. Stays with him. Lives inside his head and and behind his eyelids every time he closes his eyes and does not sleep.

_You fill my entire heart._


	2. Chapter 2

Winter grabs them both in a cold fist made of snow, and wind, and ice, and does not let go, so when they find an abandoned hunting cabin deep in foreign woods they’ve been lost in for days, they decide that they’ve gone far enough at this point. The place is small but dry, they can get a fire going and shelter the horses, and that will do.

It reminds Ragnar of their old farm. Makes him startle because every shadow casted upon the walls by the fire becomes Bjorn, and Gyda, and Lagertha.

But there’s only Athelstan.

The hardest thing is to not grab for him at every moment.

Staring, he decides, is alright. He’s always been staring at Athelstan, he’s not about to stop now. It’s just that before, he used to stare at him for a handful of reasons -lust, fascination, curiosity, a general appreciation for his aesthetically pleasing features. Now he stares because if he stops looking then his mind screams at him that Athelstan is _gone gone gone gone for ever_ and the dread that fills his entire body would suffocate him if he didn’t look up. And so he has no choice. He has to stare, for if he cannot see him, he simply cannot make himself believe that Athelstan is _here_ , with him. Alive. Breathing. Not gone. Not dead.

Here.

He closes his hands into fists around objects, the handle of his knife, of the axe, the curve of the bowl in which he eats. He hides them in his pockets and clasps them behind his back.

Otherwise he’d be grabbing at Athelstan all the time to convince himself some more that he’s here, he’s alright, he’s alive and warm to the touch and _not dead_.

He knows Athelstan is warm to the touch. Before they found the cabin they had to spend several nights huddled together under their furs, trying no to freeze until sunrise. Ragnar had taken Athelstan’s hands and shoved them under his clothes then, put the man’s icy fingers against his skin and done the same to him. Athelstan hadn’t even protested, although his eyes had widened a little. In the dark, Ragnar had imagined he blushed, but Athelstan wasn’t like the timid boy he’d brought home all those years ago. He was calmer, braver. Bolder. Maybe not as easy to make blush.

Athelstan’s skin had been so warm underneath Ragnar’s hands, in the snow storm, and that’s another reason to keep himself from grabbing at him.

He doesn’t want Athelstan to believe he’s brought him here because he wants something from him.

Ragnar wants absolutely everything from Athelstan. But he’ll settle for him being alive and by his side. That’s more than enough.

#

Winter locks them in the cabin for days, maybe weeks -it is hard to keep track. It is dark often, which reminds them of home, but it is not solely because the sun is not rising. Snow keeps falling from the sky in a never ending storm, the wind barely slowing at times. They go outside to shovel the snow off the door, afraid to be buried alive, to chop more woods and to hunt, for starving is not better than freezing. Finding prey in this weather is difficult, and Ragnar is better at it than Athelstan. But there is only the two of them, and they’re both familiar enough with hunger that they can manage with little.

They sleep in turn, still huddled close under their furs, near the fire that they keep on feeding days and nights. There’s not much else to do, nowhere to go, little to eat. So they sleep. And sleep. And sleep. Like animals hiding from winter.

Athelstan’s sleep is peaceful. Ragnar likes it best when it’s his turn to keep watch, because then he doesn’t have to worry about anything. Doesn’t have to dream about having to burry Athelstan up the hill, in front of the waterfall of Kattegat. He can remain awake, and feed the fire, and watch the light draw maps of shadows upon his dearest friend’s face. Athelstan sleeps with eyes and mouth and hands closed, the fur up to his ears, his breathing so even Ragnar could use it to measure time accurately. His own eyes follow the moving shapes of the fire on Athelstan’s cheeks, his jaws, his hair. He refrains from touching him, afraid to wake him, but his hands ache for him.

The aching is familiar. He’d wanted Athelstan since the very day he first met him. Thought it was gone while the young man was away in Wessex, only to realize it wasn’t after all. The young monk Athelstan made Ragnar want to lick away the fear on his lovely face. He made him curious as to how he would react to the things he would do to him. The way his skin would blush, and the sounds he’d make.

The Athelstan that came to the camp to negociate on behalf of an other king, this one was a different matter entirely. He didn’t barely made Ragnar curious -he made him _hungry_. He made him want, ache for the warmth and the taste of his skin, made him want to kneel and surrender all his weapons, made him want to ask again for the things Athelstan had refused in the past, ask rather than offer, because this time it didn’t feel like inviting Athelstan in his bed would be doing him a favor -it felt like something he should be begging for.

Ragnar never questioned it, the way Athelstan made him feel. It made sense to him, although he would have been unable to explain why if anyone had asked.

It was just Athelstan.

#

The storm dies down eventually, leaving the surrounding of the cabin crispy white under a silver sun. They have to shelter their eyes from the light the first day they come out of the cabin to find the sky clear and the wind down.

The decision to winter there comes easily enough. Getting caught in a several days long snow storm in foreign lands without shelter is definitely not an option. They take the time to explore their surroundings, figuring out what they’re gonna have to live on until thawing season. Athelstan spots the smoke of a village, down into the valley. He goes alone on horseback with a few of the treasures from Mercia Ragnar took when they left, and brings back extra furs, tools to fix up what needs fixing in the cabin, some food for them and the horses.

They settle with the snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! There's, like, one more chapter after this one and then I'll probably stop unless inspiration strikes for more -or for a way to include the infamous baby wolf but at this point it feels kinda out of character. Might still happen, so if you wanna be informed, subscribe!  
> Still taking remarks regarding my English so long as they remain polite and chill.


	3. Chapter 3

Athelstan’s kiss comes unexpected. Now that they can go outside again, they’ve been busy hunting, mapping out the area and chopping as much wood as they have space to store, fearing to run out during the next storm. The days previously spent sleeping are suddenly full of waking moments, and there’s no avoiding the _thoughts_ filling Ragnar’s head. It is absolute torture: when he sleeps, he dreams, and in his dreams, Athelstan is gone, his existence an aching hole in his chest threatening to swallow him whole without ever delivering the promised relief of darkness.

When he’s awake, he watches Athelstan and he t _hinks, thinks, thinks, thinks_ that he’s going to hate him eventually if he doesn’t already, _thinks_ that he has taken him away from his country, his books and his friends on empty promises, _thinks_ that eventually Athelstan is going to come to his senses, realize the whole thing is absolute madness, and that comes spring he will ride back to Wessex and to Ecbert, that he will change his mind about choosing Ragnar because after all when he chose Ragnar he thought it was to return to Kattegat with him, not to go lose himself in foreign woods and live like animals in the deep of winter!

And so whatever happens next, all that Ragnar can do is drink in as much of _this_ as he can. Drink in Athelstan balancing an axe on his shoulder under the sunlight. The sound of his boots crunching the snow, of his laughter bouncing off the tree trunks. The shape of his smile when he finds Ragnar looking at him, the color of his eyes, of his hair, of his skin.

Absorb as much of it as he can until the moment Athelstan will realize that this is all ridiculous and turn back and away from him.

And so it is unexpected, that afternoon, when he sits by Athelstan’s side on the wooden porch they’ve just built to keep snow from piling against the door during the next storm. It is unexpected, the way the sun setting over the forest is reflecting on Athelstan’s beard and hair in sparks of copper, which fascinates Ragnar and he just. Can’t. Stop. Staring.

(He has to. It is all going to end soon after all.)

It is unexpected, the way Athelstan turns his head towards him so quickly, like he’s trying to catch him staring, like he doesn’t know, or isn’t sure and needs confirmation.

(Confirmation of what ? The tidal waves of adoration in Ragnar’s eyes?)

Unexpected, the silence and the whiteness surrounding them, and Athelstan looking at Ragnar’s face like he’d look at a complicated book he’d be trying to understand, to translate into common languages. He looks so intensely, with such purpose, that Ragnar cannot stand it, and so he turns away, one hand against the freshly cut wood of the porch to push himself up on his feet.

But before he can stand Athelstan calls:

\- Ragnar.

And Ragnar turns back to face him again and it is so unexpected, Athelstan’s lips meeting his out of nowhere, in the middle of a deep, deep forest almost buried in snow.

Athelstan only kisses him for a moment, two seconds maybe, but it is enough, long enough to feel the heat of his body through his clothes, and the wetness of sweat and melted snow on his cheeks, and the softness of his lips despite the small scar he can feel on the bottom one.

It is enough and of course it is not, and so when Athelstan pulls back just two seconds later, Ragnar’s hand wraps around the back of his neck and his mouth crashes against his before giving them time to breathe. Athelstan gasps softly against him, out of surprised, and Ragnar goes and tastes that gasp with his tongue, and Athelstan lets him, his lips opening and his tongue finding his.

He tastes like hunger and curiosity. Like faith and blood. Ragnar gets drunk on it, lapping at Athelstan’s mouth like he wants to devour him, grabbing and pulling at his clothes, his fingers desperately seeking skin and warmth. Athelstan laughs softly against his mouth, nips playfully at his bottom lip and starts pushing him down the wooden porch, and soon kissing turns into wrestling, which is as good as any way to test the solidity of their work.

Their clothes become damp from melted snow and when they start shivering from the difference of temperature -skin and blood warm like fire, air and clothes freezing- Athelstan pulls Ragnar onto his feet and drags them both back inside where he lights a fire.

They take off most of their wet clothes and sit shoulder to shoulder in silence, looking at the flames of liquid light and it’s like looking inside himself, Ragnar thinks, cause it feels like a fire is licking at his ribs and chest. He doesn’t say anything but his heartbeat and his breathing shake him like an earthquake until Athelstan’s hand on his shoulder steadies him.

\- Calm down, Ragnar.

The smile in his voice ends him somehow, and Ragnar laughs loudly in the small cabin, startling the horses they’ve stabled in the back. He puts his own hand on Athelstan’s head and looks at him, the joy and warmth on his lovely face, a spark of mischief in those blue eyes he loves so much.

\- Why did you kiss me? he asks out of genuine curiosity.

And there it is, the blush he thought maybe had been lost, left behind in Wessex! Athelstan looks at him for as long as he can, then away but he doesn’t stop smiling, his cheeks and ears red in the light of the fire. He shrugs, amused with himself.

\- Why not?

There’s such fierceness in that answer, like he’s challenging Ragnar to actually tell him why he should have not, and all it does is make Ragnar want to kiss him some more. He leans into the younger man and pokes a finger against his chest to make him look at him. Whispers with raised eyebrows:

\- Is your god finally looking elsewhere? Is that it?

He watches Athelstan bites his lower lip and makes himself listen to him rather than drag him to their makeshift bed.

\- Don’t think that He’s ever been watching that closely, Athelstan says, his eyes lost very far away. I think… I think the people who taught me that God was watching me were just trying to scare me into behaving the way they wanted me to behave.

He looks up at Ragnar then, his eyes bright with something the older man does not dare to recognize, and tells him like he’s daring all the gods to strike him for it:

\- I love you. My God does not disapprove of that.

Ragnar nods, less because he understands and more because that’s all he can do now, his heart beating in his throat because he already knew it but Athelstan just told him that he loves him.

\- I love you too, he croaks stupidly. Can I kiss you again?

\- Yes, Ragnar.

They spend the night near the fire in the end, neither of them willing to relocate to the bed. There’s so much of Athelstan, Ragnar discovers, tasting his mouth again and again, the sensitive skin of his throat, the hard muscles of his arms and chest, listening to the way his breathing grows faster and heavier, and the little noises he makes when Ragnar bites at his collarbone. So many miles of warm skin for him to map out with fingers and tongue, all of it Athelstan, all of it his for the taking.

Athelstan takes his fair share of the plunder as well, wrestling Ragnar into submission and leaving the red print of his teeth again the viking’s hipbone before taking him in his mouth like he’s been thinking about doing that for a while.

He has, he admits later, deep into the night, when Ragnar is busy drawing with his fingers an itinerary by fire light between the different scars on his companion’s back.

\- I spend so much time making myself ignore that I wanted you when you first brought me to Kattegat, he whispers. It became a buzzing sound at the back of my head. Ambers of a fire inside me. Sparkling back to life every so often. And all I had to do was ignore it. Didn’t even know why anymore at the end. It made sense so long as I could feel God’s eyes at the back of my neck. Now I’m not even sure He’s ever been watching me in the first place. Even if He has, I don’t know what I was afraid of. There’s no sin in this.

Ragnar’s never been entirely clear as to what a sin is, despite his friend’s explanations, but it has always sounded strange to him, a god who doesn’t want you to love other people. Who will grow angry if you do, so angry that he might deny you entrance to the afterworld. Sex has never been anything else to him: a way to show affection and love. To share warmth. A moment of complicity. A game between consenting adults at worst.

He remembers that Athelstan loves him, and hides his smile against the younger man’s shoulder blade. Listen to himself as he asks:

\- Why now?

Athelstan moves unto his side to face him, taking his lovely back away from Ragnar’s finger tips. A low whine of protest finds its way out of the viking’s mouth and he can’t even bring himself to care because Athelstan is pressing his forehead against his, his face burning from the heat of the fire, his skin so warm against his.

\- I’ve found God again, he whispers into the dark.

He doesn’t say _I found him in the way you look at me every day since we’ve left, like you cannot truly believe that I am here with you. I found him in the beating of your heart under the palm of my hand when you said that I filled your entire heart and that you would be alright then. I found him in the warmth we shared in the snow storm when we thought we were going to freeze, lost in the forest._

He doesn’t say _God gave you to me, Ragnar. I suspect he gave me to you as well._

He is absolutely certain of it, inhabited by a faith so strong and so sincere, such as he’s never felt before, not even when he was still a monk. It has come to him as a slow realization ever since he’s taken the decision to follow Ragnar rather than stay with Ecbert. This is what he meant when he told the king « my future lies with Ragnar », he just didn’t know it as clearly then. But now…

Now it feels like God is whispering in his ear, and Athelstan has to close his eyes and press his face in the crook of Ragnar’s shoulder, the hand of the older man clutching his hair like an anchor. A sob of relief and joy shakes his entire body and Ragnar holds him through it, through the epiphany downing onto him from Above, and Athelstan is so grateful for Ragnar Lothbrok that he weeps softly.

He knows the Lord understands.

The Lord put Ragnar on Athelstan’s path for him to love, and to be loved by him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Thank you to everyone who commented and left kudos, I saw all those everyday when I got back from work and it really warmed my heart. I may or may not add chapters to this fic or publish and other one in the future, so subscribe if you wanna stay informed. Otherwise, that's it for now! Thank you for reading, and please politely let me know if I englished something wrong.  
> Cheers!


End file.
